In order to allow for cost efficient and flexible deployment solutions, within the third generation partnership project (3GPP) relaying is investigated as one of the new technologies for Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks and in particular for Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTA-A) networks. It has been shown that with the usage of Relay Nodes (RN) the spatial coverage and/or the capacity of a base station can be significantly increased. Further, areas can be covered which without using RN would suffer from bad radio conditions. Such areas are located typically at the edge of a cell being served by a particular base station (BS).
Also the IEEE standardization bodies such as the IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16 group notice and investigate the potential of relaying technology. In this respect it is mentioned that the specification IEEE 802.16 is influenced by the Wireless World Initiative New Radio (WINNER) project (see http://www.ist-winner.org/), wherein investigations regarding RN are carried out.
In LTE-A networks for implementing relaying technology a cellular system is considered, which comprises base stations being deployed e.g. with a typical hexagonal cell layout. A base station in a LTE network is also called enhanced NodeB (eNB). For each cell being served by one eNB for instance one to twenty RN are deployed typically near the cell border or the cell edge. Then in each cell, mobile terminals (MT) or User Equipments (UE) can communicate directly with the eNB over a one-hop link or alternatively establish a two-hop link connection through a RN. Thereby, three different types of radio links are involved in a cell comprising a serving eNB, at least one RN and at least one UE:
a) The link between the eNB and the RN (called relay link or feeder link)
b) The link between a RN and a UE (called access link)
c) The link between the eNB and a UE (called direct link)
In this context a major difference between RN and BS respectively between RN and eNB is that an RN does not have a cable connection to a core network and therefore signaling and data transmission, which is done to conventional base stations via cable connections, has to be done in a wireless manner. This is called feeding of RN with data, which also includes data transmission of S1 and X2 signaling as well. Thereby, S1 signaling is a data transmission via the so called S1 interface, which connects to gateways of the mobile telecommunication network with a typically IP based core network. X2 signaling is a data transmission via the so called X2 interface, which connects different eNBs with each other.
The problem of feeding the RNs can be addressed by resource partitioning, i.e. how to split the bandwidth and time slots available in each radio frame and ensure that there are physical data transmission resources available to ensure wireless connectivity between the core network and RNs.
Regarding the quality of the data connection between a RN and the core network the achievable Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) on the relay link is an important measure and determines how fast RNs can be fed and how efficient a two-hop transmission from an eNB to a UE via a RN can be done. This is especially critical due to the fact that RNs are typically located at the cell border and are operated in general in medium or low SINR conditions only and would mean that the relay link limits the achievable throughput in many cases.
Mainly due to the fact that the height of the UE, RN and eNB antennas are different, the distance dependant path-loss between RN to UE, UE to eNB and eNB to RN is different. For example for a 2 GHz carrier frequency the following modeling regarding the path-loss seems to be reasonable and is currently discussed in 3GPP.
TABLE 1Path-loss model law for different radio links.LinkPath-loss model laweNB-RN127.0 + 30.0 log10 [R in km]eNB-UE128.1 + 37.6 log10 [R in km]RN-UE136.7 + 39.2 log10 [R in km]
A further assumption used in studies regarding simulating relaying scenarios is that the UEs are often located indoor and therefore a penetration loss of 20 dB is added to the path-loss between the RN to UE and the eNB to UE link. Such a penetration loss is not added to the path-loss between the eNB and the RN because both network elements are typically located outdoor.
FIG. 4 shows a typical state of the art deployment of relay nodes 414, 424 in a hexagonal cell scenario of a macro cellular telecommunication network 400. As can be seen from FIG. 4, the telecommunication network 400 network comprises amongst others a first base station 412 and a second base station 422. Each base station serves three sectors. A first sector 410 is assigned to a first cell being served by the first base station 412. A second sector 420 is assigned to a second cell being served by the second base station 422. In order to extend the spatial coverage of the cells 410 and 420 the relay nodes 414 and 424 are located in the region of the outer borders of the cells 410 and 420, respectively. Within the first cell 410 there are located user equipments 416a, which are directly served by the first base station 412, and user equipments 416b, which are served by the relay nodes 414. Within the second cell 420 there are located user equipments 426a, which are directly served by the second base station 422, and user equipments 426b, which are served by the relay nodes 424.
As mentioned above a precondition to transmit downlink data from the BS 412, 422 to the UEs 416b, 426b at the cell edge via the RN 414, 424, the BS 412, 422 has to feed the RN 414, 424 with data first (first hop, wireless connectivity between RN and the corresponding BS) and then in the second hop utilize the RN 414, 424 for connecting the UEs 416b, 426b. 
In a known LTE-A network, which is based on Frequency Division Duplex, it is necessary to separate or reserve radio transmission resources (for instance time slots) for radio transmissions between the BS and the RNs and/or between the BS and the directly served UEs. Other radio transmission resources have to be reserved for radio transmissions between RNs and UEs in order to avoid interference from RNs during BS to UE transmission and interference from BS during RN to UE transmission.
As has already mentioned above due to the fact that the RNs are typically located at the cell boarder the achievable SINR during the BS to RN transmission is low. In order to improve the situation it is known to feed the RNs of neighboring cells at different times or using different parts of the available frequency bandwidth. Such an approach, which is equivalent to assume a static or time dependent frequency reuse scheme for relay links has the disadvantage that the available data transmission resources are typically be used in a non efficient manner. This results in that the overall data throughput within the whole cellular telecommunication network is limited.
There may be a need for increasing the overall data throughput within a cellular telecommunication network, which comprises at least one relay node being fed by a macro base station.